Relief For Judy Spain's Family

This GoFundMe is being created to get relief for Judy Spain's family with medical expenses and other bills while they are spending day in and day out with her at her hospice residence. Please read Judy's story below...

Those who have been blessed to have met Judy Spain know she’s an absolute gem. She’s known for her kind and generous heart, her remarkable green thumb, and her witty comebacks and mom jokes. She loves to laugh and joke and is full of sass. Those close to Judy know she has some of the best random tidbits of knowledge, she always knows what direction she’s facing and she’s a great teacher.
 
This year has been hard on Judy. When the pandemic began to change our lives in March, Judy had to go on leave from Bed Bath and Beyond, where she worked for many years, because as a cashier she was going to be face to face with patrons and it was too big of a risk at her age of 66. In June, Judy had a medical emergency which led to discovering that she was suffering from Pancreatic cancer which had metastasized into her liver. She lost a lot of weight and wasn’t as physically strong as she was just a few months prior.

Judy was specifically diagnosed with Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) which is a less common type of pancreatic cancer (less than 2% and it tends to come with a better outlook than the more common type). This gave Judy and the family hope. She began receiving a shot called Sandostatin once a month which was addressing hormones from or in the liver and was a form of a treatment.

Overall, it was still a good Summer, for what it could be. There wasn’t so much pain and her children rallied around her to lift her up however they could and take her to every appointment. Judy was almost never alone--Keeley, Steve, and Kevin made sure she had everything she needed and more company than she probably wanted (Haha). They got to play games with her, joke with her, cook with her, and have deep conversations.

There was a plan to start an innovative treatment called Lutathera. It was a long-term, 8 month treatment but the doctors believed she should do it and it was her best chance for more time. She had several oncologists working with her and the hope was to begin treatment in September. Insurance denied her treatment multiple times, even as the doctors advocated for it to be approved. The doctors were going to try again after 4 Sandostatin shots. This month was her 4th shot.  

In recent weeks, Judy’s fight became harder than ever before. She was barely eating or drinking and didn’t have the strength to move around as much. Judy lost a couple of pounds that she didn’t have to lose.

She saw her oncologist, had to receive a blood transfusion and was scheduled for an iron infusion later that week. They believed there could be internal bleeding somewhere so an appointment was made with her GI doctor.

Later that week, 10/14, during the iron infusion Judy was in a recliner and attempted to close it and sit up but she felt a pulling pain. She was in a lot of pain for the remainder of the evening. Her children took her in for an emergency CT and an appointment with the oncologist on Friday 10/16. It was at that appointment that the family found out that the cancer was aggressive and had grown more and Lutathera was no longer an option. With stronger pain meds, Judy went home with her children.

On Monday 10/19, Judy had another medical emergency. She went to the ER and was later transferred to ICU with an infection. They did multiple tests and determined that the infection was in her Pancreatic tumor and the cancer had spread again into her lungs. On Tuesday, her children sat down with some empathic and compassionate women from Palliative and Hospice care and had to make the extremely difficult, gut-wrenching decision to enroll her in Hospice care.

The one shining light the family has in this horror they’ve experienced is that Judy has been able to go to a hospice residence which includes care from hospice nurses 24/7 in a home-like environment in an Alexian Brothers facility in Elk Grove. This facility allows the family to visit around the clock and has even allowed Rosie, her dog, to come and stay the night with her. The room is large, private, and is furnished like a bedroom in a home would be. She’s in a queen bed for a queen, as she said on Wednesday.

Judy is in the final phase of her life.

Judy’s children would never ask for help themselves so, with their blessing, I’m doing it for them. Judy does not have a life insurance policy and she has been month to month on bills for a long time. When the time comes where she leaves this Earth to join her husband, mother, brother-in-law, and many other family and friends who have been lost before her, she will also leave her children with bills and expenses that they cannot afford. Hospital, doctor, and testing bills are so expensive. And, even though the fight was not as long as everyone had hoped, the bills have piled up.

I’m hopeful that as a community, we can rise up around Judy Spain’s family to bring some relief against expenses which no grieving family should have to be concerned with. 

Thank you for any donation you are able to make and, if you are unable to donate, please share this post so it can reach as many as possible.